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Anyone follow Josh Barro at Business Insider? Great article – it’s long, so i posted a portion of it with a link-

Fact-free conservative media is a symptom of GOP troubles, not a cause

My colleagues Oliver Darcy and Pamela Engel have written a good account of the Republican Party’s captivity to its own disinformation complex of talk radio and conservative websites that push both extremism and false information.

Donald Trump has been helped by a conservative-media environment in which there is no penalty for being wrong all the time, for being openly bigoted, or for being obviously doomed to failure in a general election.

I just want to note that the Republican Party cannot be fixed through the taming of its most committed members’ favorite media outlets. The popularity of figures who fill Republicans’ heads with disinformation — people like Sean Hannity and Alex Jones and Matt Drudge — is mostly a symptom of the problems in the party, not a cause.

So before they try to bring figures like Hannity to heel, conservatives should consider how someone like him came to be so popular within their movement.

If they look honestly enough, they will realize the conservative information sphere has long been full of lies. The reason for this is that lying has been the most effective way to promote many of the policies favored by donor-class conservatives, and so they built an apparatus to invent and spread the best lies.

For example, wealthy conservatives favor lower taxes on themselves for the obvious reason that this lets them keep more wealth for themselves. This is sensible enough from a perspective of self-interest and a defensible idea under some moral systems (Ayn Rand’s, for example) but it is not a compelling electoral argument.

So, conservatives built a network of think tanks and magazines and pressure groups funded by wealthy donors whose job was to come up with arguments that would sell the donor class agenda to the masses.

In a substantial number of happy instances, there was a valid case to be made that what was good for the rich donors was also good for everyone else, and these organs made that case.

When there wasn’t such a case, conservatives had two options: abandon their position, or make something up and do their best to sell it. Prior to the creation of the broad conservative information apparatus, conservatives had done a fair bit of the former: Making peace with the New Deal, for example, after repeated electoral shellackings in the 1930s and 1940s.

In recent years, they have increasingly chosen the latter option.

For example, conservative think tanks have put out elaborate models, purporting to show enormously positive economic benefits from Republican plans to cut taxes on owners of capital and spending on social programs. The point of these models is to show that fiscal policy that would seem to be regressive is actually good for everyone.

These models rely on assumptions that are outside the mainstream of economic opinion and overstate the economic benefits of regressive fiscal policy. That is, they lie. (See, for example, my column for The New York Times last year and Annie Lowrey for Slate in 2011.)

Climate change is another area where conservative disinformation has been dressed up with numbers and eyeglasses. In each case, the models’ lies come with math that is supposed to give the lies an aura of authority.

This math-based approach to disinformation has led to a weird set of conventions about which lies are okay to tell and which are not. For example, you can promise your tax cuts will generate 4% economic growth; 5% is considered silly. Or, you must place your objection to climate-change mitigation downstream of the question of changing climate, rather than outright denying that global temperatures are rising.

Trump’s contribution to conservative messaging has not been the introduction of widespread lying. Rather, it has been his realization that you don’t have to just lie about what the donors want lied about, and you don’t need a fake model, because nobody’s paying attention to the numbers anyway.

You don’t need an elaborate approach to “dynamic scoring.” You can just say, “I’ll make us so rich,” and mutter some nonsense about the trade deficit, and you can convince approximately the same set of voters….

Sorry Bob,
I must take exception to your description of Assad as a mass murderer, a genocidal maniac.

This idea is crucial to neocon objectives in Syria. Just like in 2003, pundits and commentators all agreed that Iraq had WMD. This is a given, to question the veracity of these factoids runs counter to what we have been led to believe.

Believe me, that’s a Trump line. I beg you to question what you know versus what you have read or heard from the “news” produced by the media owned by the oligarchs who profit from more war. Don’t believe me, question the foundation of your beliefs, maybe look up unapproved sources like Robert Parry, Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, or Rob Kall.

Piling on the propaganda is how rational liberals begin to support wars based on lies (they are all based on lies) There’s no such thing as bombing for humanitarian reasons.

GrafZeppelin127

Hey guys, is there a way to listen to this show through Amazon Echo (Alexa)?

Trump protests and “condemns” but –
He’s on Assad’s side in Syria (w/Putin)
He defends the cyber attack that EVERYBODY knows is rooted in Moscow
He praises Putin in contrast to Obama and Clinton and pretty much everybody working at DoD and CIA and the State Dept and and and.

The guy is constantly ( and almost literally) telling us straight out that he’s Putin’s bitch.

You guys cheered me up because you reminded me that Trump is elderly and he won’t live forever. In fact, the odds are very good that I will outlive him. Thank you, I needed that little light at the end of the tunnel.

katanahamon

“She should not..have been allowed..to run!” Umm.. Hillary has committed no offenses, yet Trump has I believe, one fraud trial, and something else coming up, so if someone should be prevented from running, it’s him..especially after all the sexual assault allegations.

Scopedog

You know what’s sad? That statement about how Hillary “should not have been allowed to run” is hideously similar to some of the crap I’ve seen posted at some far Left blogs or the kind of swill H.A. Goodman used to peddle over at Salon and HuffPo (now he’s reduced to Twitter and Paste).

katanahamon

Yes..one petty reason I want Hillary to win is so people can post Goodman’s most ridiculous articles back in his face..

Badgerite

Oh, double wow. Daily Kos has a video of the Trump Monster’s remarks at the Al Smith Dinner in New York on Thursday night. It is a must see. He was saying that “Hilary hates Catholics” , etc, and boy did it not go over well. Cardinal Dolan leaned over towards Hilary’s side and they shared a joke. And trump literally had the air of extreme ‘flop sweat’. For a ‘tough guy’ he really can’t handle too much of anything.
The post is by igualdad and is entitled Trump Gets Booed At Al Smith Dinner. And Hilary Remains Unflappable.

katanahamon

Huffpost has an article that says Cardinal Dolan said Trump leaned over to Hillary and said “you are one tough and talented woman.” Wonder if he will ever say it publicly. Hope that’s true… It doesn’t make up for anything, but, a shred of dignity is better than nothing…

Badgerite

Well, if you watched Hilary Clinton’s speech after the Orange Meltdown got up and attacked her, it was very funny and very gracious. With humor and calm and an even temperament, she defused the ugly mood he had created……even for himself. She had him and everyone else in the room laughing and smiling Which had to be an improvement over his mood after the debate and after his rather hostile and ugly speech. An improvement in mood even for him.
She’s a class act, this woman. This is how you mend fences and get things done. She just demonstrated America at its best. Proud to say, I’m with Her.

katanahamon

I’m in Utah, so, hope my straight dem ballot didn’t end up in the trash..

Badgerite

Didn’t know that was a possibility there. But hope it doesn’t either.
One likes to think every legitimate ballot is counted.

This will be the first election in Arizona in which I felt my ballot actually counted for anything. In the past I might as well have shredded it.

muselet

I heard maybe 45 minutes of last night’s debate, which was more than enough. JK Rowling tweeted last night: “Well, there you have it. A highly intelligent, experienced woman just debated a giant orange Twitter egg. Your move, America.” That just about sums it up.

Hillary Clinton spent the entire time poking Trump with a stick, and it worked a treat. The only reaction she didn’t provoke was Trump flinging his poo around the stage. I wonder what would have happened if the other R candidates had done some minimal opposition research—he has a long history of odd, questionable and distasteful behavior—and taken potshots at him during the Clowncar Debates.

At a campaign appearance in Ohio today, the Great Orange Hemorrhoid decided he hadn’t been nearly a big enough pillock in the debate:

Crikey.

Of course, leave it to Charlie Pierce to point out what should by now be obvious: “It has been an article of faith for the entire Republican Party for a quarter-century now that any elected Democratic president is prima facie illegitimate. Trump is just putting a layer of narcissistic varnish on the bucket containing all the historical deplorables.”

You guys are right. Trump will never concede the election, he’ll hold a grudge about it for the rest of his life and we’ll never hear the end of his bellyaching.

Clinton made exactly the right argument in response to Trump’s threatened tantrum, including baiting him.

“Bad hombres.” Apparently Trump believes he’s living in a B-Western from the 1950s.

“Such a nasty woman.” I have no comment other than egads.

Clinton’s digs were effective and nearly subtle enough for semi-plausible deniability. They weren’t as effortless or as funny as Barack Obama can muster, but that’s an awfully high bar for anyone to clear.

“I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!” That’s not a winning argument in fourth grade, let alone in a presidential debate.

Bob, Donald Trump is not a grown-up. He’s an adult, but he’s not grown up.

Bob, “for the good of the country” is not a thought that would ever pass through the echoing emptiness of Donald Trump’s mind.

–alopecia

Aynwrong

The Al Smith dinner tonight was in a way even better. Hillary’s lines were great and actually made sense. Much of what Trump said didn’t even qualify as jokes. It was just venom and the audience was not amused.

It was pathetic.

muselet

Hillary Clinton is far from a natural comedian, but she can pull it off better than a lot of politicians—BobDole, for one—who are famed, at least among poltical reporters, for their wit. She deserves more credit than she gets.

Righties in general don’t understand humor. Donald Trump really doesn’t understand humor. Or most other aspects of human interaction. It doesn’t surprise me he bombed.

–alopecia

Badgerite

That was the real Trump Monster. When anyone says that he would be in any way ‘moderate’ or someone that could be ‘controlled’, were he to get his hands on real power, I don’t think that would be the case at all. He has the kind of personality that could not brook any criticism or even any small slight to his ego. Like Oprah has always said, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” This guy has been telegraphing who he is for some time to anyone who was really listening. He has already once called on a foreign power to intercede in the US election by doing illegal hacking into private accounts. No, he was not “joking”. He has said publicly that he could shoot and kill someone on 5th Avenue and these people ( see basket of deplorables) would support him.
The GOP has been playing with fire here. And they need to stop. Now.
For years, he pretended friendship for the Clintons and turned on them on a dime. Rather viciously. Note to Paul Ryan: You cannot make ‘deals’ with someone like this and expect that he will honor them. Ever.

Every time I read Pierce I have to look up the meaning of at least one word. He makes me fell stoopid and yet I still love reading his opinions.

muselet

He’s a national treasure, for sure.

–alopecia

ProudLiberalAlways

Watching last night’s debate, the word that kept coming to mind for me was mind-blowing. Totally mind-blowing. I’m burned out on unprecedented. It’s been a long cycle! By the way, how can we mandate a shorter election season?

ProudLiberalAlways

Rump always makes me think of that old joke when I see (listen) to him——a couple of guys picked up by the cops, one of them so high that he just starts talking a mile-a-minute, and the cops telling him that he has the right to remain silent to no avail, and finally he asks the other guy if the friend understands that he has the right to shut up, and the buddy says “Oh yeah, he knows he has the right, he just doesn’t have the ability”.

katanahamon

How can analysts ignore what Trump says when they say “he does well in the first thirty minutes” when he might be calmer, but what he says is still insane? I call BS.
Agree with Badgerite that it’s terribly galling to see Trump talk over and lecture Hillary when he knows nothing at all. I think he took a tranquilizer and it wore off thirty minutes in. He simply can’t control himself, and also showed his utter lack of knowledge. I voted by mail, hope you all vote..it’s a load off for sure.

I was grateful though, that my sister called just as the debate started and I didn’t watch it. My blood pressure had started to freak out after just five minutes. Thank the universe she will never, NEVER have to appear with him again! He is one “nasty man..”.

I still haven’t got my early ballot and it’s driving me nuts! If I have to call the County Recorder one more time, it’s gonna get ugly.

Badgerite

Wow. Huffington post has a video of trump after the debate was over and Hilary Clinton had gone to shake hands and he looks visibly upset as he rips a page from his notepad on the podium and ….well go watch it.
He knew he did badly. And he was furious. Probably with Hilary Clinton.

Badgerite

Were the Trump Monster to win, who would be put in charge of the Official Diaper Changing. Can one even imagine how much he would be soiling his diapers under the pressure of ….well……anything, really.

Aynwrong

HEADLINE:Strange Orange Man Threatens American Democracy On National TV.

Just to point out, as proof of the fact that Russia is responsible for the Wikileaks hacks Hillary cites the assessment of 17 intelligence agencies that are civilian and government, including military. This is what Trump says he “doubts.” He doesn’t trust these sources. Then Trump goes on cite “many, many reports… about something the “Russians have said.”

That Hillary Clinton has been made to endure being lectured about anything by this ridiculous, spoiled, East Coast socialite who is an authority on nothing is just galling.